Evo fighting game tournament co-founder Tom Cannon confirmed on an Evo 2019 livestream that a Riot Games fighting game is in development. Cannon previously ran Radiant Entertainment with his twin brother Tony Cannon, where the two headed development on fighting game Rising Thunder before the studio was acquired by Riot Games in 2016.
“The reason why we did Rising Thunder in the first place was because we felt like fighting games just deserved to be enjoyed by way more people,” Cannon said, about 14 minutes into the stream. “At Riot, what we’re really trying to do is make something that players here can really be proud of.”
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Cannon called the announcement “maybe, like, the worst-kept secret in the universe,” which — given Radiant Entertainment’s development history — isn’t such a stretch. It was perhaps clear from the beginning that Riot Games acquired Radiant for the purpose of making a fighting game, but this is the first official confirmation of the project. Cannon did not reveal any details about the new game beyond the fact that it is in development, even as the stream’s hosts, Steve Scott and Stephen Lyon, begged for even just a title.
“Making a fighting game is super hard,” Cannon said, “and so we have a long way to go. I’m not here to say the game’s coming out any time soon, but we do feel like we’re making progress.”
Users in a ResetEra thread about the announcement speculate that the game could simply be a fighting game based in the League of Legends universe, Riot Games’ main property. The prospect a balanced fighting game with a roster of all 145 League of Legends champions is a little ridiculous, so maybe the Riot Games fighting game will include a limited number of the champions or take place in another universe entirely. If it is a League of Legends spin-off, it wouldn’t be the first: TeamFight Tactics, while technically a mode within League of Legends, is an Auto Chess-like based in League’s universe and is effectively an entirely different game.
